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Friday, October 26, 2012

Yes, that's a deer swimming about 1000 meters offshore in Lake Erie. A fisher spotted the buck, snapped some photos, and tada, here's one. More on the Cleveland Metroparks Facebook page, where there's a short account of the encounter. Yes, the deer made it back to shore safely.

What a treat to hear Sibelius’s second symphony at Severance last night! A complex work that breaks many rules of the form, it demands technical excellence from every section of the orchestra. Young conductor Robin Ticciati has not quite mastered the piece, but the Cleveland Orchestra was more than up to the challenge.

The evening got off to a shaky start with Anatoli Liadov’s The Enchanted Lake, a brief, evocative picture of exactly what the title suggests. It’s a gentle, understated work that calls mostly for fine textures and subtle nuances. Ticciati gave the piece a nice gloss, though without much definition or depth. The sublime sound was due mostly to the orchestra’s sublime string section, complemented by some lovely flute duets.

Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 put Ticciati on more familiar ground. He showed better command of the material and did an outstanding job of balancing the volume and tempo of the orchestra with the soloist, Simon Trpceski. The complementary sounds worked very well, with the lush Romanticism of the orchestra providing a warm background for Trpceski’s bold, crisp piano.

With more room to work, Ticciati was able to develop some interesting dynamics, exploring the contrast between the dramatic piano lines and lyrical woodwinds in the adagio, and building up emotional swells for the familiar melodies of the final movement. He embellished the melodies with rich colors, and put a snappy cha-cha-cha ending on the piece (sorry, that’s what it called to mind) that brought the audience to its feet and even drew some cheeky whistling.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

A flotilla of food trucks will be rolling into Tremont this weekend. Their first stop: The South Side in Tremont, which is hosting tonight’s Food Truck Beer Dinner event. It will be held in the open field directly next to the restaurant. Wiesel Boy and Sierra Nevada breweries are supplying the suds. A total of five trucks will be on hand to pair beers from those breweries with food items from JiBaro, Zydeco, Fired Up Taco, StrEATS, and Sweet Mobile Cupcakes. A $35 ticket will get you one tasting and beers from each truck. A special VIP ticket for $50 will get you in 30 minutes early, and includes four additional beer and food samples. If you want to come to The South Side for dinner or drinks, don’t fret. It will be business as usual inside the always-popular eatery. Tickets can be purchased at southsidecleveland.com; guest brews are listed below.

This Sunday marks one of the last times you will see the food trucks in Tremont’s Lincoln Park until the snow thaws. But they don’t plan on going quietly. Sunday’s Tremont Truck & Treats gives the four-wheel chefs the opportunity to showcase some seasonal grub. JiBaro, Fired Up Taco, Nosh Box, StrEATS, and Sweet Mobile Cupcakes will be on hand, promising not to forget Halloween. “Trucks will be howling from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. with their own witches’ brew and goblin bites,” says Lorna McClain from JiBaro. The trucks will be passing out special treats to young trick-or-treaters; for additional menu information, check Facebook and Twitter. Happy Truck-O-Ween.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it looks like the Frank Russo Party-Til-You-Drop Tour 2012 is finally hobbling to a long-awaited finish. After months of rumors and reports about the former Cuyahoga auditor gunning around to Cleveland hot spots and living the high life, the don of county corruption is finally going to jail.

After Russo pleaded guilty in 2010, he was allowed to hit-pause on his 21 year sentence in exchange for his testimony. Between courtroom appearances, he didn't really lay low, but dandied about town, dining in hip joints, hitting clubs, and ducking the growing ire of citizens pissed to see him free.

As Newsnet5 points out, a former Russo bud Samir Mohammad recently changed his plea from not guilty to guilty — a move that probably ended Russo's usefulness to the state and started the countdown on when he'd head to prison.

This morning the judge told Russo he must report to federal jail in December.

This was the scene at Great Lakes at 11:06, just six minutes after GLBC unleashed Christmas Ale on tap for the first time this year.

There were TV crews and reporters, thirsty folks who apparently had nowhere else to be and nowhere else to be next (soberly) in the middle of the day, Santa Claus, festive hats, grilled sausage, decorations, and more, because the heart of rock 'n' roll is in Cleveland, and so is the urge to drink strong beer before the clock strikes noon.

If any of your coworkers were missing in action, this is probably where they were.

And if it comes to dinner time and your husband/wife, girlfriend/boyfriend, sister/brother aren't home yet, that's probably where they still are. Or just outside in the gutter.

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Meat Loaf is an entertainer in the old-fashioned sense of the word. The guy knows how to work a crowd, something that was readily apparent during last night’s two-hour show at the State Theatre. The performance wasn’t a terrific one — Meat Loaf didn’t select his best songs and often sounded out of sync with the band. But thanks to pure showmanship, he appeared to have the near-capacity crowd enthralled for most of the night. During the middle of “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth,” for example, the guy went on a tangent about how his grandfather once told him to “give you everything you got.” That, in turn, inspired him to approach his live performances in that manner. “When I walk onto this stage, I am willing to die for you,” he said rather dramatically as he then chastised the patrons sitting in the upper deck of the venue for not standing during his performance like the fans sitting on the lower level. The fans that were sitting instantly got to their feet — Meat Loaf has that uncanny ability to inspire people.